rug testing would be rendered useless because hemp contains trace amounts of the psychoactive element found in marijuana. With these two major concerns, there is only one way to deal with the issue. The federal government should ban hemp cultivation until bio-engineering can be used to eliminate the presence of these psychoactive elements, and alter the appearance of the crop so that it may not be mistaken for marijuana.
             An incident occurred in October of this past year that illustrates the ongoing battle over the hemp issue. One of Canada's leading weekly magazines, Macleans, published an article that described an incident that occurred in Detroit. A rather large shipment of birdseed was seized by U.S. Customs officials. The reason for this action was that the seeds were industrial hemp seeds and did contain trace amounts of tetrahydrocanabinol (THC). This is the chemical that produces the euphoric "high" for marijuana smokers (Clark 86).
             In this case, the THC content was 0.0014%. Marijuana contains anywhere between 4 to 20%. 0.0014% is a small amount, too small to have any narcotic or psychoactive value, but a spokesperson for the DEA made the point that these seeds could be used to produce foods that, when consumed, would cause drug tests to show the presence of THC. He raised an interesting question: "What happens to the people who are using hemp oil to cook and THC tu
             ...